about his Vineyard with Peace and Prosperity but so soon as that Hedge was broken down and erroneous yea Heretical Doctrines were let in like so many Beasts of prey to devour then how quickly did these prove Turncoats and Apostates from the Faith But as for the true Christian he is like a Rock Mediis immotus in undis That although the waves are always swelling against him yet is he the same man still in his Reformed Religion and wavers not or else like that House built upon the Rock against which the Floods came and the Winds blew but it fell not because it was built upon a Rock And such a well-built house was St. Basil who being threatned with death by Valens if he would not advise further and turn Arrian answer'd with this brave resolution I need not any further advice than I have taken already about this matter for to morrow I shall be the same man that I am to day therein and no other And here know that some things are of Necessity wherein we cannot but change as in natural civil and moral things and to change in there is only humane Others again are of Duty and these either prohibited or enjoyn'd 1. Prohibited as in evil and erroneous things and to change here is pious and divine and not to change either Weakness or Obstinacy 2. Enjoyn'd as in sacred and religious and to change here is impious and Diabolical and not to change true Christian Fortitude and Constancy Whatsoever things we see then wheeling about in the world as Governments Families and the like nay howsoever we may change our selves or be chang'd in some things of an indifferent nature by those that have dominion over our Bodies and Estates yet is there no man that hath dominion over our Faith But this is Gods peculiar and therefore in this we must not change It is not with saving Truths as it is with Clothes which alter every year as the fashion doth for the fashion of the world passes away says St. John but true Religion is ever in fashion with good men and alters not And herein we may justly take occasion to bewail the unsteadiness of some in these times who are mere Scepticks in Religion always conceiving some new Opinions in it and always in pain till they be deliver'd of their new conceptions though never so monstrous and deformed That which was truth with them yesterday is no such thing to day and what is so to day is otherwise to morrow such Changelings there be in this last Age who like the Moon do never appear the same two days together And I would to God says St. Ambrose that their change were no worse than that of the Moon for she returns again within a little time to her full light but these never And he is blind that sees not this among us namely how some turn every day to Popish Superstition but more to Anabaptistical Fancies some unto Socinian Blasphemies but most unto Atheistical Notions and all into Sensuality this being the common Sewer into which all the former run and are ultimately resolved But as St. Paul said to his Galathians so do I to such O foolish Galathians who hath bewithc'd you that you should not obey the Gospel And it is a metaphor says one from Sorcerers who use to cast a mist before the peoples eyes that so they may not take a right view of what is presented to them As if he had said Who hath cast a mist before the eyes of your understandings to make that appear unto you for truth which indeed is not What Are ye so foolish that having begun in the Spirit ye will be perfected in the Flesh So Are ye so foolish that having begun in truth ye will end in falshood or can ye be so simple as to exchange Gold for Dirt Wheat for Chaff and your pretious Faith as St. Peter calls it which is the substance of things hoped for for Errours of all sorts and mere shadows of Truth I trow not For if Errour as our Kingly Divine said well have any advantage it consists in Novelty or if Truth any it consists in Constancy Was the Doctrine then of the Reformed Churches and the Harmony of our Confessions grounded upon evident and pregnant Scriptures maintain'd by the Orthodox and Primitive Fathers and conveyed to us by the constant tradition of the Universal Church the Faith of Christ once deliver'd to the Saints and the Truth of God yesterday why so it is to day and will be to morrow also And therefore to day in our profession of it we must be as yesterday and to morrow as this day because as God is the same yesterday to day and for ever so also is the Truth of God That which was once so will be so always and cannot be otherwise Oh that we would then be exhorted in the Apostles words To stand fast in the Faith to quit our selves like men and be strong and not to be as children toss'd to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine but to be as men in understanding stedfast and immoveable that so God may have cause to glory on our behalf as he did on Jobs Hast thou consider'd says God to Satan my servant Job So hast thou consider'd such a servant of mine Seest thou to how many changes I have subjected him to changes in his Children to changes in his Estate to changes in his Liberty to changes in his Friends and Acquaintance Nay seest thou how many of his Brethren are chang'd of late from a febrish distemper before now into a sleepy Lethargy Seest thou how indifferent they are for their Religion round about him and how many shaken reeds there are on every side of him And yet for all this as my servant Job did so doth he still hold his integrity But enough of this Secondly Gods end also in it is To reform our Lives and do us good by his so various dispensations towards us Hence we read Isa. 30.28 of a sieve of vanity wherein God says he will sift the Nations and shake them to and fro one after another that so he may winnow them from that chaff of sin that is within them For why was Moab at ease from his youth why setled he upon his lees and held still his corrupt tast but because he was never disquieted nor emptied from vessel to vessel Ier. 48.11 Thus a sedentary life we find very subject to Diseases and a long standing Prosperity to a Nation is like a standing Pool whose water doth soon puddle and putrifie And this is the reason of that speech of David Psal. 55.19 Because they have no Changes therefore they feare not God making by it the uncheckt prosperity of worldly men a great occasion of their continuance in sin and so an Index of Gods Wrath upon them rather than of his special Favour to them And therefore now we have seen the Angel of God moving the waters of
afflicted condition or as a cordial to stay up our spirits in the saddest and most distressed times and to teach us patience and contentedness in them that so as in prosperity we should not say we shall never be moved so neither in adversity that we shall never be delivered when we shall consider that what weight of affliction soever we lye under is not of a continuant but of a changeable nature And to this end we have the sure staff of Gods promise unto his children to lean upon as in the tenth Chapter to the Hebrews where he says thus Yet a little while or rather as it runs in the Greek yet how very very little while with a double diminutive and he that shall come will come and will not tarry And in the precedent verse he tells them they have need of patience that they may receive this promise And in the twelfth Chapter to the Hebrews the Apostle takes up an exhortation to it from the Wise man and makes a consolatory use of it to his Hebrews withal taking them to task for their forgetfulness of it And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto children My Son despise not thou the chastning of the Lord nor faint or be not broken in mind as others translate it when thou art rebuked of him For we had says he the fathers of the flesh who verily chastened us a few days after their own pleasure and we were patient under their rod and gave them reverence but God a few days only for our profit Shall we not then be much rather in subjection to him who is the father of spirits and live Thus when Boetius that Christian Consul and Martyr at Rome was wrongfully deprived by Theodoricus of his Honours Estate and Liberty Philosophy brings in what we call Gods Providence comforting him in these words I turn about my wheel continually and delight to tumble things upside down why then doth thy heart shrink within thee when as this changeableness of mine is cause enough for thee to hope for better things And so also when many of our Brethren were heretofore in Exile for their Religion in Queen Maries days what I pray did that Jewel of our Church comfort them with but onely this Haec non durabunt aetatem These will not endure an Age as indeed you know they did not her Reign being not full out six years time And with the same consideration also should we chear up our selves now under that black cloud that hangs over the Church that it will not endure an Age but be as Ephraim's righteousness was even as the morning cloud or as the early dew that passes away To this end it will not be amiss to note how the afflictions of Gods people in the Scripture are run out not by any long tract of time as by an Age Year Month Week or the like but by the shortest measures that can be as by a Day now a Day you know holds not long but is quickly gone even as a flying Bird or a Poast that runneth by And thus good Hezekiah calls the time of Sennacheribs rage against Judah a Day of trouble Isa. 37. v. 3. Or if this be not enough you have them then contracted within a lesser room and measur'd onely by a Night which is no more but the dark side of a natural Day and therefore is a great deal shorter And this made the Prophet David say Psal. 30. v. 5. That heaviness may endure for a Night but joy cometh in the Morning The time then that heaviness shall endure to the Godly can be but a Night at the longest but whether it shall be so long or no the Prophet is very uncertain and unsatisfied for which cause he expresses it here with a May be Heaviness may endure for a Night But if this expression be not full enough to set forth the brevity of them our Saviour doth it then by an Hour which is shorter yet and but the four and twentieth part of a natural Day for so he calls the time of his persecution by the High Priests and Elders of the people Their hour and the power of Darkness Luke 22.53 Or if this be yet too long a space to set forth the brevity of their afflictions and to give a through Comfort to Gods people their little continuance is then express'd by a Moment which I am sure is short enough so you have it Isa. 54. v. 7. For a small moment says God to his Church have I forsaken thee but with great mercy will I gather thee And again v. 8. In a little wrath I hid my Face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon thee Or last of all if any time can be shorter than this it must then be the present time yet such are the sufferings of Gods children in St. Pauls account but the sufferings of the present time Rom. 8.18 and a shorter time than this there cannot be For as the French our Neighbours are said to be for their inconsiderateness Animalia sine praeterito futuro Creatures that have respect neither to time past nor time to come so may we say of the present time That it is as short a measure as can possibly be imagined having in it nothing either of time past or future the first of the two being dead already and the later of them being not yet born unto us And yet we see here for all this that St. Paul when he had cast up the account of all which he suffered in the cause of Christ how he reckons and concludes it to be onely the suffering of the present time and not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed A Prayer ALmighty God who rulest the Sea of this World by thy power and whose paths are in the roughest Waters We the unworthiest of all thy Servants commit our frail Barks with all that we have to the Steerage of thee our great Pilot and faithful Preserver beseeching thee so to order by thy good hand of Providence all outward contingencies to us that we may be able to bear up through them with a steady and even Course against the several Storms we shall meet with in this passage to our blessed Harbour of Eternity And however earthly things may like Watery Billows be every day rowling up and down in their vicissitudes about us yet suffer oh suffer not the Heavenly truth of our Reformed Religion to flote about any longer so uncertainly among us nor our selves to be as Children toss'd to and fro with every Wind of Doctrine But let us be constant and unwavering in the profession of that Holy Faith we have received and Thou that art the God of Truth be graciously pleased to stay us up firmly in it by the sacred Scriptures which are thy Word of Truth and the sole Anchor of our Faith to rest upon Lord pull in the Sails of our desires towards fleeting and transitory substances for who will cast his eyes upon that which hath wings to flee away as an Eagle towards Heaven Ballast our Spirits with Humility in a prosperous condition and when we have the highest and most pleasing Gale of the worlds favour for us give us to strike our spreading Sails of Pride and to make our Lenity and Moderation to be known to all men for the Lord is nigh at hand But if thou in thy just judgment against us for our manifold and hainous sins shalt cause some cross wind or other to blow upon us and give us over to Shipvvrack in our temporals Supply then we entreat thee their want with thy spirituals of Patience Faith and other suffering graces That although the tempest be never so boisterous without yet we may enjoy within a Christian calmness of Spirit in a happy quietude and contentedness of mind with all thy dealings towards us and not set down our rest upon the Creature which is so restless with us but amidst the sundry and various changes of the world may there fix our Hearts where onely true and unchangeable joys are to be found through Jesus Christ our Lord. FINIS
earth as if they should never see a change or at least did not for the present look for in Heaven a better and more enduring substance as the Author to the Hebrews speaks Heb. 12.34 And yet as the Prophet Isaiah complains so may we Quis credidit auditui nostro who hath believed our report or to whom is this truth of God revealed For it is strange to see how few among us do believe this that both in our persons and estates we are so changeable But this is their way says David this is their foolishness For how soon did Galba start aside from the Empire Degustans Imperium tasting it only as Jonathan did the Honey with the end of his Spear How soon was Haman chang'd from the Minion of the Court to be the hang-by of the world Again how soon was Nebuchadnezzar chang'd even from a Man to a Beast and Herod from the highest of Men to be Meat even for the lowest of Reptiles And the prosperity of Richard the Third was so short says our incomparable Historian that it took end ere himself could well look over it There is not any thing then that we can call constant here on earth which makes the Author to the Hebrews speaking of Abraham say That he looked for a City having foundations Upon which one gives us this Note That the Heavenly City can only be said to have properly a Foundation whereas those Cities that are on earth do shew plainly by their daily ruines that they have no sure foundation to rest upon Oh let this be a means to take off the wheels of our Affections from their eager pursuit after earthly things and set them upon things above where the moth cannot come at them nor thieves break through to steal And let us look to that charge of the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge those that are rich in the world that they trust not in uncertain Riches or rather in Riches which are Uncertainty it self in the abstract for so the Greek runs it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. in the uncertainty of Riches And that we may in no wise doubt of this their uncertainty the Wise man prefixes a note of certainty before this uncertainty Certainly says he Riches make themselves wings and fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven as if he should have said Certainly Riches and all worldly things are as uncertain as a Bird that is upon the wing and therefore we must not set our hearts upon them but our daily prayer and practice must be So to pass through things temporal that so we do not loose those things that are eternal or else with David let us beseech God to incline our hearts unto his Testimonies and not to Covetousness Now this inclining our hearts unto Gods Testimonies is nothing else but that holy and penitential change of Heart and Life or else that turning unto God with all our hearts which God calls for at our hands and expects from us in all his changes whether personal or else National which if he find in us then let what changes soever fall they shall all work together for our good but if not we must then look to be as a rowling stone and to have our daily turns and changes in this life from one degree of misery to another until at last we turn into Hell as David speaks with all those that forget God Secondly The consideration of this point may be a good antidote against Pride in a prosperous Condition since God hath so ordered the Web of our Lives as that Adversity as well as Prosperity is interwoven in it For there is nothing that swells us up so much as prospering here in worldly things and nothing again that is more effectual to asswage this swelling in us than to consider the brevity and mutability it is subject to Now it swells us up with a high opinion either of our own Goodness above others or else of our own Greatness 1. Our prospering in worldly things swells us up with a high opinion of our own Goodness above others as 1. It makes us think our selves the only good men in Gods eye because we are prosperous in the worlds whereas indeed this can be no certain rule to measure out any such thing by since the world and the prosperity of it is so variable and uncertain And therefore when at any time God shall water us more than others with the lower springs of his earthly Blessings we are not therefore to have an overweening conceit of our selves and our own causes above others as if God upon this ground had tyed his special love either to us or them For you know that when God would chuse a King for Israel he chose him not by outward and perishing excellencies for then he would have chosen in the room of Saul Eliab Aminadab or Shammah who were the three elder brothers of David and men of goodly personages to look upon yet God chose none of these says the Text but David the youngest of them though not so outwardly yet inwardly glorious being a man after his own heart It is the chief Argument the Turks use at this day to prove themselves the only Musselmen or true believers We thrive say they and prosper in the world for how hath our Mahometanism over-run all Asia Africk and the greater part of Europe too And do not they among us then reason more like Turks than Christians who speak after this manner Come see how we bear down all before us and ride upon the backs of the poor in triumph Thus and thus do we prosper in the world and do even what we list and is not this an evident sign we are Gods Children and that the right end of the staff is ours Sure if we were other than Gods peculiar people he would not bless us so much as he doth But to these I answer That these and such like are only Bona Scabelli as Divines distinguish well out of that place of Isaiah and not Bona Throni the Goods of Gods Footstool but earthen ware and not the good things of his Throne which are Grace and Glory therefore can set upon us only an earthly mark for men here to take notice of us but not any heavenly cognizance for God to look upon us as upon his dear and elect Children For else it would easily follow That the Alchoran were better than the Bible and the Turks fancie better than our Faith of Christianity And were there no other signal place of Scripture for this than that of the Prophet David in his 73. Psalm as indeed there are very many this alone methinks were enough to impress this as a truth upon us where he speaks of some that are not in trouble like other men but pride compasseth them about as a chain violence covers them as a garment their eyes stand out with fatness and they have more than their heart can wish yet these says he v. 12. are the ungodly
who prosper in the world And the Prophet Jeremy makes bold to question with God about it in these words Jer. 12.1 2. Wherefore says he doth the wicked prosper and why are all they in wealth that rebelliously transgress and he rests satisfied with this verse 3. That God did by that prosperity of theirs fatten them as sheep to the slaughter and prepare them for the day of destruction And this is that prosperity of fools that the Wise man speaks of which will destroy them Prov. 1.32 It is not then our thriving in Temporals but in Spirituals that speaks us and our Faith to be accepted of God For the truth of Grace or Religion and the goodness of a mans Cause is not measured by the Souldiers Sword but by the Word of God which is the Sword of the Spirit God Saints no man for his goodly Personage for his Riches for his politick head-piece of contriving and bringing about his own worldly and sinister ends or for his Arms and Conquests for then Saul and Croesus Ahitophel and Alexander the Great had been high in Gods book but he values Men only by their Spirituals as their graces of Faith Humility Patience Meekness Obedience and the like and where he finds these how unfurnished soever they are otherwise yet these are mine saith the Lord and in that day when I shall make up my Iewels I will spare them even as a Father doth his Son and then shall ye discern between the righteous and the wicked betwixt him that feareth God and him that feareth him not Indeed God may sometimes permit evil to prosper in the world but never approve of it for so acknowledges the Jewish Church Lament 3.35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High or to subvert a man in his cause the Lord approves it not And therefore to argue from Gods permission to his approbation is a gross Non sequitur nay more a laying our iniquity on Gods back as if he would take it well at our hands to be made a Pack-horse at every turn to bear all our execrable burdens and were as David speaks such a one as our selves to favour evil courses or else to own them as his off-spring Which made Dionysius the elder conclude Sacriledge to be no sin when he had rob'd the Temple at Locri because the Gods seem'd as it were to smile upon the action in giving them fair Winds and Weather both in their voyage thither and return back again But as it was a great Blasphemy says one for the Devil to personate God when he would be similis Altissimo so is it greater to make God personate the Devil And yet this he doth that makes God patronize his evil because he prospers in it for this brings in God saying That he will be like the Prince of Darkness and makes the Holy Ghost to leave his Dove-like shape and come only to us in the form of a greedy Raven or Vultur 2. As our prospering in worldly things swells us up too high with an opinion of our own Goodness and makes us think better of our selves than is meet so also doth it on the other side lift us up too far with thoughts of evil towards our brethren and make us think worse of them and the ways of God they walk in than we should by charging them as utterly deserted of God because we see not now the same hedge of Gods favour about them as heretofore we did but the stakes that then prop'd them up are now thrown away as useless and unserviceable Whereas Afflictions on this hand are every way as temporary and transient as Prosperity was on the other and being so must needs be as a broken reed or a reed of Egypt wherewith we cannot exactly measure Gods Temple nor the Spiritual estate of his Children It was a hard stumbling-block to the Prophet David for a time when he says that his feet were almost gone and his footsteps had well-nigh slipt upon his sight of the wickeds prosperity until he went into the Sanctuary of Gods Word where he learnt to settle his wavering and distrustful thoughts for there he saw that notwithstanding his outward afflictions that God held him up under that sore temptation with his right hand and would in opposition to transitory goods which are the proper blessings of the wicked because they have no others but these to trust unto guide him with that which should infinitely exceed them to wit his Counsel here and his Glory hereafter And it was the great question so much agitated betwixt Job and his Friends Whether those doleful changes that befel him were the cognizance of his insincerity to God and of Gods disfavour to him upon it yea or no. His Friends taking advantage upon his present weakness and distemper maintain it strongly against him in the affirmative that they were until at length God himself steps in to the rescue of the weaker side and makes the conclusion as all Logical conclusions do to follow the weaker part determining it for Job against his Opponents in the Negative and telling them that they spake not of Job nor of his proceedings towards him that which was right Job last verse 7. Seneca a Stoick Philosopher hath a set discourse to this purpose Cur bonis viris mala eveniant why the evils of this life most commonly fall out to good men and he concludes it thus That temporal evils are no sign of Gods hatred to them For dost thou think says he that the Lacedemonians hated their Children when as they experimented their disposition to virtue by stripes in publick No. So do we think Gods Children in disfavour with him because he lays here sore blows upon their Bodies and Estates by evil men as his rods and scourges in it No for we see and feel many times says an experimental patient of our own well the deep lines and strokes of Gods hand upon us when as we cannot by our skill in Palmestry decipher his meaning in it no more than the Malteses could by the viper upon Saint Pauls hand judge of his condition to God-ward For God sometimes that we may not thus judge inverts humane order and runs out his dealings towards us in the ordinary chanel of his universal Providence Justice and Equity by which he waters here all alike Indeed they may seem I grant to go counter to our apprehended rules of common right yet are they always agreeing both with Gods secret and revealed will though like the Sun in its sphere not perceptible to us because too mysterious and dazzling however many pretend to interpret them by a blaze of fire lighted at the natural pride of their own private spirits and that dimme twilight of knowledge which is in them when as they are altogether in the dark to the true light of Gods word and works herein And here take in the opinion also of Epictetus another Stoick and Heathen man which speaks
of all doth not take away the natures and workings of Secondary Causes but rather establish them which is the reason of that Speech of God to Job in the ordinary revolution of the times and seasons of the year Job 38.31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades and loose the bonds of Orion Now the Pleiades are those we commonly call the Seven Stars that have their influence on the earth by producing sweet showres to the opening and refreshing of it about the Spring of the year and Orion is a Constellation most conspicuous in the Winter-season as having a commissionary power to bind up the earth with Frosts Again canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season i.e. the twelve Signes successively after one another or guide Arcturus with his Sons i. e. the Polar Star as some will have it with those ignes minores that wait upon him or Bootes as others It is not then so much the Earth as the Heavens that give us either fruit or withhold it they being the first ordinary means whereby God uses to work out alterations in sublunary things The second Instrumental cause of these strange Vicissitudes here below is the Will of Man for though it have not a liberty to Spiritual yet all grant it a liberty to external acts and moral goodness And this Liberty of Mans Will doth God use as an under-wheel to turn about most of those Alterations that are in the world It is true that Health and Sickness Peace and War Plenty and Scarcity Riches and Poverty proceed from God as the principal Efficient cause but yet for all this we deny not but that God makes use both of our selves and others as to the means of bringing them about The life of Joseph was checquer'd with variety of accidents for he is now a Slave to the Ismaelites and by and by a Prince in Aegypt Now these although they proceeded from God as the Author yet was the will of his Brethren as the will of Reuben and Judah the instruments of preserving his life and the wills of his other Brethren the means of selling him into Aegypt Now because it is the Nature of Instruments to be subservient to the principal Agent and to be determin'd by it therefore give me leave here by the way to fasten this exhortation upon you That in all Changes whatsoever you will look beyond the Instruments of them unto God the Principal Agent For so did Job in his losses beyond the plundring Chaldeans and Sabeans unto Dominus abstulit The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away looking upon them as we use to do upon an Index tantum in ordine ad Librum only in order to the Book it self Et in transitu ad Deum in his passage unto God who sets them a work as to their natural powers and faculties though to the evil of them no otherwise than by ordering and over-ruling it to the good of his Children And hence it is that the wicked are called Gods Sword as in the 17 Psalm v. 13. Deliver my Soul says David from the wicked which is thy sword And so must we in all those Losses that befal us here have in our eye not so much the Sword as the Hand that holds it which will be one means and a good one too to bring us to Davids calm temper in the 39 Psal. 19. who says in the like condition That he was dumb and did not open his mouth nor let fall an impatient word in it because it was Gods doing And therefore when Abishai would have taken away Shimei's life for cursing of David No says he Let him alone Iussit enim Dominus for the Lord hath bidden him curse who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so q. d. Who then dare expostulate with God or call him to account about it as if he were unrighteous in it since evil men are but Swords in Gods hand who when he hath once done his work by them will either put them up again into his Scabbard and lay them by or else so blunt the edge of their power that it shall not cut or else break them a pieces and throw them quite away And so much for the Efficient Causes of Vicissitudes Next I shall speak to the Ends or Final Causes of them And these are either Ex parte Dei or Nostri in respect of God or our selves First in respect of God and so the Principal End why God rings such Changes upon all earthly things and will have them disposed of after so various a manner is to make them by it the more tunable to his own Glory which by this means is exceedingly magnifyed and advanced but especially in the Attributes of his Power Truth Wisdom and Goodness 1. In his Power and Omnipotency that so he may let the world know that the Finger of his Power is in all Transactions and that he can do whatsoever he will both in Heaven and Earth and yet changes not For why else did God work so many miraculous Changes in Aegypt by the hand of Moses Why turned he Moses Rod into aSerpent and the Aegyptian waters into Blood Why their Dust into Lice and Flies and their Light into Darkness for the space of three days together Why else Created he a new generation of Frogs and Locusts among them Why unheard-of Diseases upon themselves and upon their Cattel Why destroyed he their Herbs and Fruit-trees with Hail and their first-born with untimely death In a word Why caused he the Red-sea to go out of its natural course and chanel whereby it became a wall to the Israelites and a grave to the Aegyptians Did not God all this to make known the glory of his power in the preservation of the one and destruction of the other Yes For this cause says God to Moses I have raised thee up to shew in thee my power and that my Name may be declared in all the earth 2. He advances also his Glory this way by manifesting his Truth and Faithfulness in that those things which are accidental in regard of us and seem as impossible yet are they exactly brought to pass in their due times and seasons As in the bringing of the Israelites out of Aegypt wherein God was full as good as his word and kept touch with them to a day in their Deliverance as you may see Exod. 12.41 where we read That it came to pass in the end of four hundred and thirty years even the self-same day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the land of Aegypt All Pharaoh's oppositions and tergiversations could not prorogue their Bondage so much as one day beyond the time prefixed of God but serv'd only to fill up that Interim or void space of time betwixt Gods Promise made to Abraham and his performance of it And if you ask by what intervals of time the truth of his promise came about so punctually Divines will tell